John Gordon (South Londonderry MP)
John Gordon PC (23 November 1849 – 26 September 1922) was an Irish lawyer and politician, who served as Attorney-General for Ireland and a Judge of the High Court.
Gordon was the son of Samuel Gordon, of Shankhill, County Down. He was educated at Queen's College Galway, a constituent college of the Queen's University of Ireland, graduating with a B.A. degree in 1873, and LL.B. in 1876. He served as auditor of the college's Literary and Debating Society for the 1873-1874 session. He was awarded an L.L.D. (honoris causa) on the dissolution of the Queen's University in 1882. He was called to the Irish Bar at the King's Inns in 1877.
He married Dorothy Clay in 1887.
Gordon was elected a Member of Parliament for the South Londonderry constituency in 1900, as a representative of the Liberal Unionist interest, and served in the House of Commons until 1916.
On 1 October 1902, Gordon sent a letter to be read at the annual meeting of the Moray and Nairn Conservative Association. In this letter, he cited growing tensions in Europe and abroad in order to call for increased unity within the United Kingdom, stating that "We shall need amid the gathering difficulties of the future a united national voice in support of our empire's interests in peace or in where when these are threatened by a world-wide rivalry"[1]
In June 1915 when his party joined the Asquith coalition government, he was appointed Attorney-General for Ireland, an office he held until April 1916, when he was appointed a judge of the King's Bench division of the High Court of Justice in Ireland. He also became a member of the Irish Privy Council in 1915.
He died in Dublin on 26 September 1922 aged 72, having been taken ill in a tram on his journey home from the Four Courts. Maurice Healy, who vividly described many of the Irish judges of his youth in "The Old Munster Circuit" confessed that Gordon had made almost no impression on him except a refusal to wear bright colours.
References
- ↑ "Moray and Nairn Conservative Association". Aberdeen Daily Journal. October 20, 1902. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
- Who Was Who, 1916-1922
- Obituary, The Times (London), 27 September 1922
- Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs
- F. Elrington Ball The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921 John Murray London 1926
External links
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by John Gordon
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Sir Thomas Lea |
Member of Parliament for South Londonderry 1900–1916 |
Succeeded by Denis Henry |
| Legal offices | ||
| Preceded by Jonathan Pim |
Attorney-General for Ireland 1915–1916 |
Succeeded by James Campbell |